I remembered how fluent she had become by playing Tens Go Fish. Could she ap-
ply that knowledge in solving the number sentence? Sylvia was about to count on
5 from 10 when I said, “Sylvia, pretend these numbers are the cards you have to play
Tens Go Fish. Would you be able to make any combinations of 10?” Sylvia replied,
“Yes, I can put 7 and 3 together to make 10 and 8 and 2 to make another 10.” Then
she wrote: 10 5 10 25 20 10. She continued by grouping all the 10s
and rewrote: 30 20 25 5. At this point, Sylvia decided to use the towers of
10 strategy, which she had used since the beginning of the year (see Figure 7–2).
As she worked, Sylvia explained, “I have 3 towers of 10, and 2 more towers
of 10; that is 10, 20, 30, 40, 50. Then I have 2 more towers of 10—60, 70. Now I
can add 5, 71, 72, 73.. .” I stepped in, “Sylvia, pretend you are playing Ten
Towers of Ten, what would you do next?” “Yes!” she exclaimed. “I can put to-
gether the 5 and the other 5 and that makes 10. So now I have [pointing to each
tower as she counted by 10s from the beginning] 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80. All
of that is 80!”
Sylvia had pieces of knowledge that had not yet been integrated. For the most
part, she could play the game Ten Towers of Ten (Russell et al. 2008g) and follow
the rules, making towers of 10 every time she had loose cubes. She could also
solve number sentences using the towers of 10 by grouping the towers of 10 first
and counting on the loose cubes next. However, she had not realized that she
could combine the loose cubes (in this case, the two 5s) to make a new tower of
10 when solving number sentences. She needed my question to begin to link both
experiences and use them to solve the problem.
Some students can easily apply what they learn from playing games to solving
number and story problems. They can see the similarities and differences among the
Assessing and Supporting Students to Make Connections3010 10 10 10 10 10 10 5 5++ 20 25 += 5Figure 7–2.